Questions with default CG

On certain planes when removing fuel/passengers the CG goes out of bounds, but we also have a blue slider to adjust the CG, said it is either too far to the left or too far to the right depending on the plane, my question is: The CG Of the empty plane, shouldn’t it be the median between the front and rear limits? Since adjusting this to the median solves this, but I don’t know if it’s the right thing to do.

Then I found this and am even more confused who to believe.
https://docs.flightsimulator.com/html/mergedProjects/How_To_Make_An_Aircraft/Contents/Files/Flight_Model/Weight_And_Balance.htm?agt=index

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Not necessarily. CG boundaries are set for flight. When an aircraft is empty on ground (I mean operating empty, i.e. engine oil, water etc are loaded up, just no fuel and pax) the CG may not be in the middle of the flight boundaries. Not every aircraft is the same, but planes are designed to get the CG in a favourable position when pax, cargo and fuel is getting loaded up. Of course it won’t be completely off when empty, it will still be within the limits, because the plane still needs to be able to fly with only a pilot onboard and minimal fuel.

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The CG will be at the average point of mass; density may vary from front to middle to back so it won’t be just the halfway point of distance. However short of moving passengers and cargo around in a large plane, i don’t know what you could do to change the CG of an empty plane IRL… :slight_smile:

think of the CG (Center of Gravity) as the point that an aircraft will balance on a pin (single dot)
ideally the CG and the Reference Datum they speak of on that doc page should be relatively close
but they are not the same, the CG moves with loading, and its certainly possible to load aircraft to not be balanced (think of a canoe, the cg will move way forward if you load a second person, and a third may sink you :P)
thats what your looking at in that tab

not all aircraft can keep the allowed weight balance in the green with all load outs that may be possible (making it that way might severely restrict what an aircraft can do), this is a normal limitation of design, if you want say a twin otter that can carry more weight in the cargo area you may not be able to just carry 2 pilots with no cargo and stay in the green- its up to the pilot to load the aircraft so it stays balanced enough to control

Datum reference for good measure (the pics show where the modeller places the “Datum”, we ‘try’ to get it fairly close to what the CG will be)
https://docs.flightsimulator.com/html/mergedProjects/How_To_Make_An_Aircraft/Contents/Modelling/Airframe/File_Setup.htm

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Excellent questions. You are correct, there is not enough documentation on this topic. I have been ignoring the weights and balance screen since the beginning because I don’t think it’s working correctly. My WACO YMF5 has spots for a pilot and 2 passengers, even though it’s a two-seater.

If I adjust fuel quantity, I can get the “red line” to appear, indicating (?) that the CG is not centered. But, the quantity of fuel required to get the red line seems random.

With all the trims in the neutral position, and without touching the CG screen, the model is very nose heavy at spawn.

I am going to play around with it some more (thanks for bringing it up) to see if I can get the model to be in trim at spawn.

What is odd about the W&B screen is that the slider is labeled “Empty”.

That is something that shouldn’t be adjustable and is determined by the manufacturer of the aircraft and is redetermined when non-standard equipment is installed in the aircraft (which potentially changes the weight and balance of the aircraft).

Theoretically, the CG should be set by how you load the aircraft. I’ve been on small aircraft where the flight crew have moved passengers to different seats and/or move baggage to different storage compartments.

The whole slider thing seems whacky in MSFS.

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